Autodesk has announced that the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) has incorporated Autodesk Inventor 3D mechanical design software into its academic curriculum, providing students with the necessary skills to land jobs and internships in the professional world. Using Autodesk software, UCSD is focusing its curriculum on mechanical, aerospace, and biomedical engineering.
UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering was ranked 14th in the nation and eighth among public universities in the April 15, 2002, issue of U.S. News and World Report. The Jacobs School of Engineering at UCSD boasts more than 3,800 students and welcomed more than 200 students into the freshman aerospace, bioengineering, and mechanical engineering program in the fall semester 2001. In the “Introduction in Engineering Graphics and Design” course, students use AutoCAD for 2D CAD and rapid prototyping, and in January 2002, Nathan Delson, director of UCSD’s Mechanical Engineering Design Center, and William Bussard, lecturer, incorporated Autodesk Inventor for 3D modeling and animation. Students in this course are offered the opportunity to purchase student editions of Autodesk Inventor as well as AutoCAD software programs to enhance their learning process.
“We emphasize using the proper design tool for the task, whether it be hand sketching, 2D CAD, or 3D modeling,” said Delson. “In the first project, students create 2D CAD models that are cut from acrylic with a laser rapid prototyping tool. In the second project, teams of students build robots to compete in a class-wide competition. Each team also builds a website with a CAD animation showing how particular features of their robot work, using Autodesk Inventor.”
Student projects can be viewed at https://maelabs.ucsd.edu/mae3/index.htm and https://maelabs.ucsd.edu/mae3/Winter_2002_Contest/team_links.htm.
